I have spent a lot of time trying to contact people regarding my scripts to no avail so I hatched a plan to not send a script i have written but try something they call META. I decided to write a script that involved an interview with the person I was sending the script to. Sort of an interpretation of what Charlie Brooker would write. I even referenced Mr Brooker. As I was physically posting the script to two people to whom I respected there was a reference to them both within the same script. Sort of Meta within Meta.
I enjoyed writing it and finally printed out the 10 pages ready to send to the production office but took a step back and thought 'maybe this is too weird'. If this was done a few years ago it would have probably been received with good humour (or chucked in the bin) but in the current climate if the person starts reading the script it would come across as if it was written by Travis Bickle. If I sat in an office and received this rather invasive script I would be rather freaked out hence having a last minute reality check.
I can't throw the script away as i enjoyed the process of the surrealness so i have pasted it below for anyone that cares to read. I have even included the cover page EXPLICITLY stating this isn't a spec script but a fictional interview. Also the aspect that this was written in good humour and not in some creepy way (which it would have been if i did post it) I can better explain the thought process here.
I have spent a lot of time trying to contact people regarding my scripts to no avail so I hatched a plan to not send a script I have written but try something they call META. I decided to write a script that involved an interview with the person I was sending the script to. Sort of an interpretation of what Charlie Brooker would write. I even referenced Mr Brooker. As i was sending the script to two people i respected, I referenced them both within the same script. Sort of like Meta within Meta.
So i printed out the 10 pages ready to send to the production office but I took a step back and thought 'maybe this is weird'. If this was done a few years ago then it would have been received with good humour but in the current climate if the person starts reading the script it would come across as if it was written by Travis Bickle. If I sat in an office and received this rather invasive script I would be rather freaked out hence having a last minute reality check. I ripped the scripts up and threw them away.
I enjoyed the process of the surrealness so i have pasted it below for anyone that cares to read. I have even included the cover page EXPLICITLY stating this isn't a spec script but a fictional interview and that i am of sound mind and body thinking of doing something different to try and get noticed.
The Green Book won Best Picture at the Oscars so i decided to put it to the top of my watch list. To be honest I can see why Spike Lee got angry. It has a lot if clunky scenes which I have written below as i watched it. In fairness the performances were brilliant but from the guy who brought you Hair Sperm Cinema…. I think it should have been the last film to win considering what the competition was. Everyone has an opinion and this is mine.
Clunky scene 1: Two black workers are in Tony's house and they are given a drink by the wife. Later on Tony takes the glasses and puts them in the bin. WE KNOW TONY IS A BIGOT. HE WON'T SHARE GLASSES WITH BLACK PEOPLE!
Clunky scene 2: In one of the many driving scenes, Tony stops to take a piss. He grabs his wallet to show that HE THINKS ALL BLACK PEOPLE ARE THIEVES.
Clunky weird scene 3: After the first concert, Tony is playing dice with all the other black drivers. TONY RELATES TO OTHER WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. HE ISN'T RACIST, JUST CLASSIST.
Clunky scene 4: Tony tries to steal a rock from a shop but Dr Shirley tells him to pay for it. TONY IS ON THE ROAD TO REDEMPTION. Also the rock makes an appearance later on.
clunky scene 6: THEY BOND OVER FRIED CHICKEN/// FFS!!! FRIED CHICKEN!!!!!
Clunky scene 8: Dr Shirley does his intellectual Shostakovich reference analogy to prove he is smarter. OSCAR PLAY.
Clunky scene 9: Refused a suit fitting in a shop Dr. Shirley plays the piano aggressively in the next scene.
Clunky scene 10: TONY IS BLACKER THAN DR SHIRLEY! and the PLOT TWIST IS PLAYED EVEN FURTHER TO WIN THE OSCAR.
Clunky scene 11: The Russians (Germans) SCHOOL TONY ON DR. SHIRLEY'S MOTIVES TO PLAY IN THE SOUTH.
Clunky scene 12: The BOSTONS story to not being allowed to eat in the restaurant while being black.
Clunky scene 13: They go to a dive bar and BE WORKING CLASS.
Clunky scene 14: Tony and Dr. Shirley bond over bar fried chicken. FRIED CHICKEN IS WHAT BRINGS AN ITALIAN AND BLACK MAN TOGETHER.
Clunky scene 15: The Dr. brings class to a dive bar by playing cool music. BLACK PEOPLE LOVE IT!
Clunky scene 16: THE CHEF COMES OUT OF THE KITCHEN TO LISTEN TO THIS COOL MUSIC. FRIED CHICKEN COOKING IS ON HOLD!
Clunky scene 17: The Dr is down on the cool music and plays like it's def.
Clunky scene 18: NON RACIST POLICEMAN! THERE ARE GOOD GUYS THAT HAVE THE BADGE!
Clunky scene 19: OSCAR WIN FOR THE DR AND TONY SNOW DRIVE IN! SUCH POWER!
Clunky Scene 21: TONY HAS CHANAGED!!!!! CINEMA IS COMPLETE! RACISM HAS ENDED.
LAST Scene is so schhmaltzy and I may be cynical but i didn't buy it. Roma deserved the award.
So let me get this right? People are only now truly outraged by how the Leave Team weaponised social media in the Brexit campaign because it was made into a drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch? It wasn't journalism that opened people's eyes to this mass manipulation, it was a (admittedly well made) drama.
Brexit: An Uncivil War detailed how this all worked whereas the newspaper articles on the same subject caused a small smatter of anger here and there. The same small ripple that came to news stories about Edward Snowden and The Panama Papers. People were outraged for all of 10 mins.
News of how they did all this shady work has been reported in the press and in Private Eye for a while but like everything else in middle England, the majority of the people mainly read The Sun and Daily Mail which have agenda led distorted views which are also designed to manipulate the readers. Irony right? Old school manipulation compares to new school. Read any Daily Mail headline and you get the idea of the Brexit Hysteria being peddled. Look at any Social Media post and ask yourself if it is true.
By this summation middle America will only realise the terrible dumb things that Donald Trump is doing if it was made into a film starring George Clooney as Trump… sod it even if we had Rosemary Clooney played Trump the message would still get across and people will suddenly be outraged.
And they say Print is dead…. depends on your age.
i have noticed for a while you have been running a pop up ad campaign which essentially says "pay us what you think we're worth" and my guess is that you are probably not getting the numbers you were hoping.
Ever since Alan Rubbisher made it his mission to make The Guardian Free you have been stuck in a funny position to keep the money rolling in as advertising alone isn't cutting it and circulation is going down as expected as people go digital.
Here is an analogy on why people close the pop up window for the most part. There is website called EDLhacker which is used by the large archive television community (including me) and the chap running it relied on donatiopns to keep the site up to date but face it, hardly anybody in the community paid. We just used it for free. Then suddenly the site was archived off until he got some donations and this set the entire community into a panic. That is how vital this site is. Suddenly people including me put in donations and now the site has been updated. It took that kind of desperate threat to make people wake up to what they should rightly be paying for.
Now i am not saying you should do anything drastic but people aren't going to donate as the purse stings have been tightened.
I suggest and this is a BIG thing to attempt, Put all the news websites under a paywall… You, The Sun and even The Daily Mail should join the NYtimes and do it in unity. We know smaller sites like Huffington Post will stay free because of their chronic use of free labour but let's face it… it's rubbish, right?
Donations won't bring in the big bucks… subscriptions will and I subscribe to Broadcastnow and Private Eye. It can be done.
I just watched the clip of Sacha Baron Cohen's Who Is America? and (as of this writing) anticipating the series. It's interesting that this style was done by Chris Morris nearly 20 years ago in the notorious Brass Eye peodophoile episode. Getting dim celebrities/ people in authority to read the most outrageous things out loud not knowing the content should have been a red flag to these so called intelligent people but alas it isn't. Why? Because they are self promoting idiots who fall for the back story of the 'legitimate' production company that wants to put across the same agenda. Here it is, these gun nuts mention in pre written idiot boards Blink 182 and Rita Ora and in Brass Eye it was Phil Collins saying 'Nonce Sense'. The difference is that Mr Cohen did this subterfuge in America and NOBODY knew the ridiculous parody elements contained. The fact that he got away with it is astounding.
I didn't know how people still fall for these things until I spoke to a director years ago who used to go undercover setting up meetings with politicians for Dispatches programmes and I asked him the same question. His simple answer was you get chummy with them, do small talk and start asking curious questions and lure them into talking about all sorts of less-than-honest things. It apparently is as simple as that. Politicians are less cautious than you think and here the gun lobby are the same. I bet the PR vetting people are either fired or dead. Either way they are SCREWED!
These gun nuts in the US want to use any media to promote their agenda and this is their weakness much like the caught-out UK politicians. I can't wait to watch this and it is TERRIFYING. What got me was the nuances. The Gun Lobby rep is shooting cartoons of black people and arabs with no flinching of the political incorrectness.
I do hope Chris Morris gets residuals from this. He did this kind of outrageousness (sort of) first.